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Why even in Victory – Julio Cesar Chavez Jr lost Saturday night against Brian Vera

On September 15, 2012, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr had gained the respect of the boxing world that he had been desperately seeking, following his valiant effort in losing to Sergio Martinez. Following his controversial unanimous decision victory over Brian Vera on Saturday night in Carson, California it’s pretty evident that Chavez Jr has lost most, if not all, of the respect that he gained.  And Chavez Jr has no one to blame but himself.

Let’s be clear, it wasn’t just the fight that has soured people so much on him.  In spite of the outrage of boxing fans throughout social media (I personally had Vera winning 96-94 on my personal scorecard), an argument can be made that Chavez Jr defeated Vera. To be honest, what has folks so upset, over last night’s fight, was the width of the scores by the judges of the fight (the fact that judges Gwen Adair and Marty Denkin scored fight in favor of Chavez by an astounding 98-92 and 97-93 was ridiculous). If Chavez had won by close decision, I wouldn’t be so upset with him.  I would sum it up as hey, it was close fight and that could have gone either way and moved on.

What has so many folks annoyed with Chavez Jr is the way he has conducted himself, over the past year, and his actions leading up last night’s fight with Vera was icing on the cake.  It’s bad enough that following his loss to Sergio Martinez last September, Chavez tested positive for marijuana and was suspended for nine months.  It’s the fact that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr is not conducting like a professional and the proceedings leading up the Vera fight made that crystal clear.

When the fight with Vera was made, the negotiated weight limit for the fight was 162 pounds. Next came the news that Chavez Jr had split with trainer Freddy Roach. Then as the fight got closer Top Rank, Chavez promoter, made changes that the weight limit for the fight would be 168 pounds because early on, it was pretty evident that Chavez would not be able to make the original weight limit.  Then to make the lead-up to the fight even more farcical, the week of the fight, Top Rank again made changes so that the weight limit would be 173 pounds because again Chavez Jr could not make weight. And even then, there was concern that Chavez Jr could not make that weight because rumors were that Chavez was 180 pounds all week long and that he was in the sauna the day of the weigh-in.  Now as result of this, Top Rank reportedly paid Vera an extra $275,000 as well as the bout be reduced from twelve to ten rounds, so that all these concessions could be made.

So when you look at Chavez performance last night, in which he was obviously nowhere in peak shape (and fought like it), his complaining to Jim Lampley, as well as his actions leading up to the fight, has culminated in boxing fans having enough with him. With his flippant and lackadaisical attitude towards training (which has been an issue for years), his at times reckless behavior outside the gym, as well as the attitude of Top Rank, combined with the controversial win over Vera last night, and it seems that concessions are constantly granted towards Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and Chavez is benefiting from a sense of entitlement, privilege, and hierarchy.

Where does Chavez go from here? More than likely, Chavez will try to rectify himself and will hopefully wake up and take things seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised that Top Rank in turn will put Chavez in the ring with Andre Ward or Gennady Golovkin at some some point during 2014 where he would get spanked by either guy. The bottom line is that for Julio Chavez Jr to gain back the credibility, he had last year, it all starts with him. Now the question is, is he willing to look in the mirror and do that. At this point, it’s a wait and see.